Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has expended much of its energy bringing dubious cases against the president’s political foes and propping up the administration’s disastrous immigration policies.
At the same time, DOJ is trying to portray itself as an aggressive prosecutor of corporate crime. I previously wrote about the department’s exaggerated statements concerning its enforcement of the False Claims Act, the law used to bring civil actions against dishonest government contractors.
DOJ is also making Trump-style boasts about its track record with regard to criminal fraud cases. A recent press release about the performance of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section in 2025 was filled with terms such as “historic,” “recording-setting,” and “cutting edge.” The release is touting the fraud section’s Year in Review report, which is a bit less bombastic but is still prone to overstating DOJ’s accomplishments.
The fraud section’s four units, each of which prosecutes individuals as well as corporations, cover Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases; Health Care Fraud; Health and Safety cases; and Market, Government, and Consumer Fraud.
Let’s focus on the FCPA criminal cases against corporations, which over the years have included some of the DOJ’s biggest prosecutions. When you get past the report’s self-congratulatory introductory material and reach the actual statistics, it turns out that DOJ handled a grand total of 3 FCPA cases against corporations during 2025.
Only one of the three cases was of any real significance: TIGO Guatemala, a subsidiary of Millicom International Cellular, paid $118 million to resolve an investigation of bribes paid to government officials in Guatemala.
In another of the cases, DOJ actually declined prosecution of Liberty Mutual for bribes paid to government officials in India because the company voluntarily disclosed the misconduct. Liberty Mutual’s sole penalty was the disgorgement of $4.7 million in profits.
The third FCPA case DOJ takes credit for has not yet been resolved. In fact, the action was originally filed in 2023 during the Biden Administration against an individual. In October 2025 DOJ added SGO Corporation, doing business as Smartmatic, as a defendant. The matter is pending.
This is hardly an impressive performance for a period of 12 months. According to data collected for Violation Tracker, the Biden Administration resolved 23 FCPA cases against corporations with a total of $3.4 billion in fines and settlements. That’s an average of about 6 cases and $850 million per year.
The Obama Administration resolved 73 cases against corporations with $6 billion in fines and settlements over its two terms, or an average of about 9 cases and $750 million per year.
Trump’s first term did even better, with an average of $1.9 billion in penalties per year. That figure was boosted by a $2.9 billion settlement with Goldman Sachs in 2020.
Clearly, Trump 2.0 has nothing to brag about in terms of FCPA criminal enforcement. This is just another example of how an administration that is devoted to the needs of business, especially those companies chummy with Trump, feels a need to give the false impression that it is tough on corporate misconduct.
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